(^188) 97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know
Share the Vision
Jared Richardson
Morrisville, North Carolina, U.S.
Do yoU WoRK WITh IDIoTS? Do your team members want to bankrupt the
company? Sometimes it feels that way, but it’s usually not the case. The truth
is, everyone wants to succeed and feel proud of their contributions, no mat-
ter how much it appears that they’re trying to sabotage your project. They are
doing what they think is the right thing, but everyone has a different idea of
what “right” is.
As the software project manager, how do you get everyone working together?
Know that most teams labor in darkness. They don’t know why this project
matters, how it fits into the company’s larger strategy, or why the deadline is
June 17th. Since they don’t understand why certain decisions were made, the
choices appear arbitrary and irrational. Everyone struggles, trying to form a
clear vision of this murky situation without any definitive information to help
them. Should we be surprised that everyone see a different end goal to the
project?
To clear away the fog, you need to share with your team members the key pieces
of data that will make them knowledgeable about your common endeavor. Let
them know that the project needs to ship in mid-June to beat a competitor’s
product to market by three weeks. Help them understand that this project fills
a need in a larger corporate strategy to expand internationally, or that your
customer is counting on it to shore up dwindling profits from its existing, but
aging, product line.